


Kitten War King

by OldDVS



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Fluff and Humor, KittenWars, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 13:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18316232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldDVS/pseuds/OldDVS
Summary: Those folks back with the troops, after John Watson's involuntary exit, make their own fun.  Perhaps John should not have sent that photograph....





	Kitten War King

Kitten War King

There was an unofficial bulletin board tucked into the corner near the mess hall. Most of those on base paid no attention to it. Until the kitten wars started. The board became something like the internet site, KittenWar. One hot day. someone put up a picture of a kitten. Then another kitten picture was posted beside it, and someone who had spent a little too much time staring at sand came up with a contest idea. For a week everyone voted. Votes were coins at first, and then people began adding trinkets, candy, bits of costume jewelry, all tossed into the jar positioned underneath the picture of the cat. And no switching jars, thank you.

If your kitten won, you got the contents of both jars and your kitten picture stayed up. The losing picture was taken down and someone put another in place. Six months into the cats, someone who fancied themselves a comedian posted a picture of her boyfriend instead of a cat. She never told her boyfriend he came within two candy bars and a keychain of being beaten by Mr. Fluffypants.

The nature of the beast changed, as did the rules. Magazine pictures no longer counted. Your boyfriend, girlfriend or a relative counted, but it had to be an actual photo. Oh, and it couldn't be anyone who was actually on base. The one time they tried that, it ended badly. Let's not go into any of the details. At least no blood was involved.

The man labeled “Rod,” had won two weeks in a row when he was challenged by a curling 5 x 7 black and white photo of a man with dramatic dark hair, lovely lips, intense eyes, and cheekbones that defied description. It was labeled “Sherlock.” Rod went down. He was replaced by Sammi. Sammi suffered the same fate. Ellen, who had posted the Sherlock picture, started to get questions. She was up front about it. It wasn't HER boyfriend, more's the pity. He belonged to an old friend who used to serve in their unit. Amid some argument, it was agreed that the picture qualified.

And so Eli bit the dust. Angela, too. Teddy and Fin and Ali fell next. Ellen got sick of candy and finding places to stash the 'treasure” she was accumulating. The picture of Sherlock started to get a little battered around the edges. Finally, someone posted an incredibly cute picture of a kitten next to Sherlock's sultry gaze. The kitten was loosing until Ellen crept up in the middle of the night and added most of her hoard into the kitten's jar.

Tippy won and everyone went back to Kitten War, which was safer. Ellen confessed, when pressed, that she'd had the picture from Captain Watson. She implied it was John's boyfriend. Reactions varied.

“John Watson? I never knew he....”

“Three Continents Watson had time for the boys as well? Damn!”

“Are you sure? I didn't think he....”

“Lost my chance there,” said Anna. “Did I tell you? He invited me for a drink on Saturday. But Friday....”

“Yeah.” There was a chorus of sighs.

“Looks like we all lost our chances,” Ellen said. “But it's not like any of us could compete with the Kitten King, there.”

Ellen dropped a line to Captain Watson thanking him for the photo he had sent.

Three years later, when Sherlock accompanied John to an informal reunion of his army mates they were both somewhat surprised at the warm welcome Sherlock received as they walked in the door. Phones whipped out all over the room as the moment was captured for posterity and for the benefit of those who had not been able to attend. John and Sherlock were equally surprised when Sherlock was addressed as “Kitten” by one and all, but were even more startled by the sexual innuendo and suggestive winks and nudges. John spent several hours blushing until his very ears were pink, but every time he opened his mouth to voice some version of “not gay!” Sherlock managed to talk over him, interrupt him, or distract him.

Ellen bought them each a drink and told the entire tale, suitably embellished, during which John's ears flushed to an actual red.

They went home and Sherlock was a tiny more charming than usual and John was a little more drunk than usual and result was, in John's words, “Amazing, really amazing.” While John could probably still declare he was, “Not gay” he couldn't say his flexibility about certain matters wasn't rapidly expanding. Sherlock couldn't say, “Not my area” with any degree of veracity any more either.

What John could say, at that point, was that he was the only person in the world who could make “The Kitten King” purr. It was an extremely nice baritone rumbly sound. Lovely.

And the next day John spent over an hour playing KittenWar, and Sherlock spent over an hour... researching.

Well, that's what he called it.

**Author's Note:**

> KittenWar is an actual thing. If you want to spend half an hour (that you will never get back) making decisions that are harder than you would expect, you can go google it.


End file.
